Episode 3

Helen delivers a scathing debrief to Jones: the operation is a shambles, and Jimmy has abandoned his post. He had promised Sokarev he would not leave his side, yet now he is off chasing the scent of blood. Jimmy runs the fugitives to a quiet close, and the chase turns into a small suburban war. A brief gun battle leaves McCoy shot in the shoulder; the Irishman responds by hurling a grenade beneath Jimmy's car, and the explosion shakes the street. In a lovely period detail — this is 1984, pre-mobile — Jimmy races to a neighbouring house to use the telephone, only for the terrified householder to try to slam the door on him, trapping the agent's foot in the jamb.

McCoy, dripping blood and carrying a rifle, forces his way into Norah's house and rounds up the girl and her parents. Famy slips out the back and heads for Heathrow, where he will get one final chance at Sokarev. For McCoy the calculation is brutal and clear: the longer he holds the family hostage, the more ground he gains for his partner. He makes Norah bind her own mother and father — a chilling exercise in control, the girl pulling the tights tight around her mother's legs at his instruction.

Jones arrives with the assault team and refuses Jimmy's demand to go in with them. Dejected, the agent slumps into the rear seat of a police car — one of Perkins' best silent beats. Once McCoy is dragged out, Jimmy takes his turn: a milder, interrogator's violence that Jones tacitly sanctions in front of the prisoner. Whatever it takes is acceptable, so long as it all happens behind closed doors — a code the finale will punish.

A little pain extracts the truth: Famy will make one final attempt on Sokarev's life, on the tarmac at Heathrow, just before the scientist's plane departs. This time the security cordon holds. Famy is shot down before he can get near his target, and as he struggles to rise, Jimmy is there, gun raised. The camera cuts to a roaring jet engine at the moment of the shot, but there is no mistaking what happens; Jimmy walks away through a ring of shocked onlookers.

That most public of executions makes Jimmy untouchable. The Minister orders Jones to fire him; Sokarev leaves the country safely. The last image is a drunken Jimmy wandering the darkened streets of London, laughing at the irony of it all — the agent who did whatever it took has made himself impossible to employ, while the scientist he failed to guard walks free. It is a bleak, funny, bitter close to a serial that never quite found the audience it deserved, and proof that in this world the ends only justify the means until somebody is watching.